Montreal Canadiens Futures: Nick Suzuki leads the way to a big win

One of the future bright lights of the Montreal Canadiens Nick Suzuki came up big for the Guelph Storm helping them to an 8-2 win.

Although the Montreal Canadiens were on break some of their prospects weren’t. Nick Suzuki for example and the Guelph Storm have been having a lot of fun since the trade went down.

Since then, Suzuki has put up a goal and eight assists in eight games. He’s also quickly formed near perfect chemistry with Philadelphia Flyers prospect Isaac Ratcliffe. That isn’t too much of a surprise. The two played Minor Midget hockey together for the London Jr. Knights Min Mdgt AAA team in 2014. Suzuki had 68 points in 31 games while Ratcliffe had 49 in 32 games. Safe to say the edge goes to the Montreal Canadiens here.

Wednesday saw the Guelph Storm take on the Saginaw Spirit who are by no means a bad team. In fact, Saginaw is third in the Western Conference and match the Storm in both goals for and against. It could’ve been an evenly matched performance between the two teams, but Guelph had another idea in mind.

The score was 8-2 by the final buzzer, and Suzuki played a decent role in that.

Saginaw scored the first of the night, but Guelph quickly answered back three minutes later. Then a power play opportunity saw Suzuki score his first of the night. Sean Durzi got a nicely placed cross-ice pass over to the 19-year-old at the left circle. Suzuki handled the puck for no more than a second before roofing the puck over Ivan Prosvetov’s shoulder.

His second of the night came later in the first on the rush. Suzuki initially had the puck making a short pass to Ratcliffe who had a nifty move to evade one of the Saginaw defencemen.  Ratcliffe sauced the puck back to Suzuki, and he made no mistake increasing Guelph’s lead for his 25th of the season.

Suzuki capped off the night with one of the best secondary assists you’ll see. It started with a strong play in the neutral zone to strip Cole Perfetti and pass it to Ratcliffe in the offensive zone. Ratcliffe set up Domenico Commisso well who got a backhand goal to make it 5-1.

I don’t think the Guelph Storm regret the trade at all and the dynamic Suzuki has with Ratcliffe is paying off well.